Daughter of the Air
by Five seas
Summary: When on a rogue mission, Rey is captured by Hux. Instead of bringing her to the Supreme Leader, however, he offers her a deal - use her bond with Kylo to bring him down, in exchange for information on her parents. But what happens when she makes an ally with the person she hates the most? Originally written for the Reylo fairytale anthology, little mermaid retelling.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Star Wars belongs to Lucas Film and Disney. I'm just... well, messing about really.

This was initially written as part of the Reylo Fairytales/Myths anothology on Tumblr over a year ago. I accidentally deleted my blog so I figured I'd put it here, sans the nice editing. (Go download the PDF, the art is gorgeous.)

Anywho. This was written after Episode VII aired, but before Episode VIII. Enjoy.

* * *

 **Little Temptress**

She woke up chained to a table. Again.

Rey closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then she tried again. Nope. This wasn't a dream. And judging from the pounding in her head and the nausea at the back of her throat, she'd been captured before she'd so much as had a chance to fight.

Ignoring the voice inside her head, telling her that for a Jedi-in-training she sure got captured a lot, Rey surveyed her surroundings. Her table was in a small room, smaller than the one in the Starkiller base, where Kylo Ren had first interrogated her. She was either on a small ship, or in some kind of midway base. The air was rank. Like one too many people had been broken here and nobody had bothered to clean.

Once she exhausted her normal senses, Rey turned to the Force, reaching for it as Master Luke had been teaching her, trying to get a better feel for where she was and who she was with… and there was nothing.

Her headache grew, as she tried again, and again, and again. She took a slow breath, held it for four seconds, exhaled for eight. Nothing. She brought her heartbeat as down as she could, and still, there was no connection, not even a hint of it. It was as though the Force was gone completely.

 _No. No way. This isn_ _'t happening._

Rey hadn't been truly in touch with the Force for a long time, but she had felt it, in some degree or another, since she was a very little girl. To reach out to it and find nothing, it shook her to the core. It was like— it was like—

It was like being abandoned all over again.

 _Stop._ She ordered herself, fighting against the panic. _Stop right now. You can_ _'t afford to lose your head._

She did not survive on Jakku for over a decade only to die like this. The Force was in every living thing. It was the fabric of the universe itself. It didn't just get up and walk away. If she couldn't sense it, Rey thought, then it was because something was obstructing her access.

Closing her eyes, she expanded her awareness, probing the nothing for any gaps, any giveaways. If Kylo Ren had found a way to exploit their link, to make her weak, then he would surely have left some mark behind. But she still couldn't feel a thing, and her aches and pains were becoming more and more prominent. And she really, really needed the bathroom.

It was time for old school methods.

They'd taken her lightsaber, but she was still wearing the same clothes she had when she left the Resistance base… was it this morning? Or had a full day passed already? She added this to the list of things she would figure out later, and she tried angling herself on the table, tried to bring her hips closer to her right hand.

"Looking for these?" someone said, holding out her lock picks right in front of her eyes. Rey jumped. She hadn't heard them approach at all.

But it wasn't Kylo Ren she heard. This was someone else.

The man walked around, keeping himself in the shadows until he was right in front of her. His hair was slicked back and he was wearing the uniform of a First Order commander, but there was no weapon on his belt. Not even a standard issue laser.

"Let me go," Rey ordered, throwing as much of her will into the command as possible. "Now."

"No."

"Give me back my things, then."

"I don't think so," the man said, and then pulled a chair out of somewhere, plonked it down, and sat. "I wouldn't force the Jedi mind trick, if I were you. Too much effort for no gain. But if you insist…"

Rey focused on him as hard as she could. Unfortunately, the more she did, the more her headache grew, until she had spots dancing in front of her eyes, and her stomach cramped. Had she eaten anything, she probably would have thrown it all up.

"Yes," the man said. "You should listen to me more often. It'll make this a whole lot better."

"Who are you?" Rey asked. "What are you?"

He smiled. "It drives you mad, doesn't it? Not knowing. Having someone have the upper hand. You thought you left that all behind on Jakku, didn't you, Rey."

Her hands balled up into fists. Oh, if only he untied her, she would show him exactly what she could do! But that wouldn't happen - he'd planned this too well. He'd made sure he'd control the entire encounter, and the more she fought back, the more she played into his hands.

So instead, she thought. The Resistance had some data on most of the First Order high command, and pictures of those on top. Of course, Kylo Ren made the most appearances, since he often led strike teams, but they did have a shot of him with another man, of the same rank, arguing. "You're Hux," she said at length. Several more puzzle pieces fell together. "You're resistant to the Force."

"Did you just figure this out, or does your little organization know that already? Actually, it doesn't matter," he says, before she can respond. "They did a terrible job at training you to protect yourself, either way. We had you captured in no time, and you exhausted yourself trying to fight me there." He tsked. "Tell me, why does the Resistance's finest fly on her own without an escort, or even a decent stealth shield?"

She didn't respond. This was just heckling, an attempt to destabilize her.

Hux waited for another minute, before rising. "Perhaps you're too tired to chat right now. That's alright. I can come back in a bit."

"Wait," Rey said, and then wondered - what do I even want from this guy? "I need to use the bathroom."

"I'm sure you do. We have a lovely vent right above the toilets that leads straight to the docking bey," Hux said. "Unfortunately, you will have to make do with the facilities right here. Enjoy."

And then he left her, shutting the lights on his way out.

* * *

There was no way to tell the time, no way to know if hours or days or weeks had passed. Eventually, Rey's nausea and headache subsided, and she managed to calm herself down enough to rest. And think.

Unfortunately, her thoughts weren't very happy ones. Every time she tried to retrace her steps, she found something new to beat herself up about. Why hadn't she put her shields up? Why hadn't she chosen a better ship for her excursion? Better yet, why had she left on her own at all, without telling anybody? For the first time in an age, she had people who cared about her whereabouts and wellbeing, and she deliberately left them out of the loop. How could she be so stupid? So foolish?

And yet, at the same time, it was like the perfect series of events had lined up, leading her here, to this moment, this ship, this table. _Moping won_ _'t save you,_ she reminded herself. There was nothing she could do with what she had at present, so she had to wait and gather information and use it to her advantage.

She discovered fairly quickly that, while her holding cell was sub-par, her captors had taken precautions specifically designed to keep her from escaping. Hux was the only one who visited her, and whatever powers he had about resisting the Force, he had managed to extend them to the entire room, cutting her completely off. Hux was also the only one who tended to her, even if, as a commander, such a job was below him. He inserted an IV line into her arm to keep her from becoming dehydrated and hosed her down when she soiled herself, but other than complain about how annoying the task was, he didn't speak to her, let alone attempt an interrogation.

Throughout all this, she wondered where Kylo Ren was. Surely the man wouldn't resist coming to gloat over her, or at least try to convert her to the Dark Side again.

 _Don_ _'t let your guard down,_ she thought. _Be patient._

If only she'd been patient before. Maybe she wouldn't be in this mess.

Three times Hux changed her IV bag. Three times he worked in near-silence. The fourth, she asked him where his friend was. "I would have thought he'd enjoy seeing you play nurse," she said.

Hux laughed. "You know him well, then, little temptress. He would get a real joy out of this, and he doesn't have much of that. Unfortunately, we would have to deprive him of the pleasure."

"What do you mean?" Rey asked, narrowing her eyes. "What is this all about?"

He made to leave, and then, seemingly changing his mind, pulled up his chair again and sat opposite her. "Are you ready to listen?" he asked softly.

Rey gave him a weary look. "I don't have much of a choice, do I?" she asked.

"On the contrary. You can fight me. From what I'm told, you're not half-bad at a verbal spar. Ah—" he smiled "—but you're tired. A diet of saline liquid and no sleep will do that to a person. Apologies."

She waited.

"You're not very well versed in interrogation techniques, are you?" Hux asked. "This is usually the part where most prisoners get chattier."

"We don't torture people for information in the Resistance," Rey said.

"Neither does the First Order. Well, when I'm in charge, anyway. Kylo Ren gets his results faster by plucking them straight out of people's heads, but I must admit, I find his technique lacks finesse."

"Finesse or not, I'm strapped to a table, without food or a chance to stretch my legs," Rey said. "I don't see how the two of you are any different."

"You're wrong there, little temptress." Hux leaned forward in his chair. "The restraints are a simple security measure for a not-so-simple captive. I would dispense with them, but I would like to be heard out, and I don't think you're amiable to do that.

"But I'm getting ahead of myself. Yes, Kylo Ren has his own way of doing interrogations, but I find I get better results by just talking to you. Explaining your situation, figuring out what you want. Maybe we can reach a compromise. In your case, however, I'm pretty sure we won't need to negotiate."

Slowly, she started to understand. "You want to make a deal with me?"

"Why, I think she gets it."

"You're a moron," Rey said. "I'll never betray the Resistance. You'd be better off killing me right now and saving yourself the trouble."

"So hasty," Hux said. "I'm not particularly interested in your information about the Resistance. From what I can gather, they keep you out of the loop as much as any third-rate pilot in their fleet. No, little temptress, you have more valuable talents than as an informant."

"Enough. Why are you calling me that?" Rey snapped.

"Isn't that what they called you? Or has it been so long that you forgot?"

She felt the blood rush into her head, the fury betraying her. But it _had_ been a long time. She'd had new nightmares now, nightmares that were far worse than her years on Jakku. She hadn't gone back to those memories in years, and now there was Hux, throwing it all in her face.

"Cheeks the color of sunset. No wonder he finds you so irresistible."

"How did you find that out?"

"What? Your past?" Hux snorted. "Sorry to disappoint you, but there are living people on Jakku who still know you. A few greased palms here and there, and hey presto, you get all the information you need. See, this is why I don't appreciate Kylo Ren's approach to interrogations. He doesn't give a toss about what people think, so long as they're afraid. I find making friends to be much more profitable."

"You sure like to compare yourself favorably to him."

"I'm stating a fact. I'm very good with information, which is why you will want to help me.

"You see, I know you and he have a connection. Some sort of shared bond. I'd like to bring you with me to the First Order base, so that you can use it and weaken him."

Rey waited. Then, when he didn't continue, she burst out laughing.

"Does that surprise you?" he asked.

"Why," she said, "would I ever want to do that? I might just as easily escape and burn your entire order down to the ground."

"But you won't, will you?" Hux said. "You won't, because you hate Kylo Ren, and you would relish the opportunity to take him down. Admit it, Rey. You would have been happy to go back to Jakku, back to that sham of a life you lived, if he hadn't given you something to hate. You train to become a Jedi so that you can take him down.

"But you're not strong enough yet. And that drives you up the wall, because while you're learning the basics, he's out there, ruining more lives."

"Even if that were true," Rey said, "why would I agree to help you?"

"Well, for one thing, because I'll let you live afterward," Hux said. "Mind you, I could just as easily let you starve to death here and then bring your body to Snoke, and get favor that way. You know I'm a patient man. But I think we can work better together. I can give you information that you will find useful."

"More information about my childhood?" Rey laughed. "I can remember Jakku well enough on my own."

"But can you remember the time before?" Hux asked. And that cut her laughter short. He stood. "Have a think about it, Rey. There's always a choice."


	2. Chapter 2

**The exchange**

Rey fell asleep in the torture chamber, but when she opened her eyes next, it was to a brightly lit room with no windows or doors. She was no longer bound, and there was even actual food laid out for her. She rolled on her knees and tried to rise, but her head span too much.

 _What am I doing?_

The answer was prompt. _Surviving._

Even if she still wanted to wipe that smirk off Hux's face, she recognized that she was a disadvantage. He'd snuck up on her when she hadn't noticed him and ever since then, he'd had her bound and underfed and constantly alert. She was in no condition to fight or to escape. She hoped she might be able to do something when they moved her, but they had managed to keep her knocked out for the duration of the trip.

And now here she was, presumably at the heart of the First Order, where, Hux assured her, she would not be able to escape without help.

It was time to test out that theory.

Carefully, she started moving around her room, first low to the ground, then higher and higher. Logically, there had to be an entrance, but no matter how much she poked and prodded she couldn't find one. The furniture - a bed, a chair and a table, as well as a corner for washing up and waste - everything seemed to be made out of one piece of metal, and fused with the wall.

A prison cell, one that she could move around on her own, was an upgrade to being held down on a table, but still very restrictive.

 _Think,_ she told herself. _Where do you go from here?_

If she could get her hands on a communications device - steal one from a guard, or from Hux - she'd have no trouble contacting the Resistance, she was sure. But she was a prisoner, so she had to improvise. She tested her connection with the Force, and found it, to her delight - a feeble link, but a link nonetheless.

The joy of that discovery - the relief of it - was quickly overshadowed, though. Because as soon as she made contact, she also felt the darkness saturating the air, filling her entire being and leaving a bad taste in her mouth. So much darkness. So much misery. And there, right in the middle of it, she felt Kylo Ren.

Rey pulled away from the force, closing her senses until it was just her in the room. Hux expected her to destabilize his rival so that he would be easier to bring down, but she had to do so without alerting him - or Snoke, or anybody else who was sensitive to the force - about where she was. _That should be easy, considering I don_ _'t even know where I am._ At first she'd wondered why she'd been brought here, when she could have made a connection with Kylo Ren from anywhere, but now…

If she were caught, she'd be killed on sight. She didn't command the Force well enough to fight back, and she had no weapon to defend herself. If they didn't kill her by any chance, nothing she said would be believed - especially an accusations against Hux.

If only she could connect with Luke… but Luke's presence within the Force was weak already, and in here, she doubted she could establish a connection.

Rey sat down on her bed and cradled her head in her hands. _I have to do this,_ she thought. _I have to, at least for now._ At least she wasn't being restrained. She could learn more about the base before making her escape. Leaning back, she closed her eyes, and tried to make contact.

At first she experienced the Force like a torrential rain, pouring down on her, soaking her to the bones and filling her up. Then the waters started to rise, swallowing her ankles, her waist, her neck. She took a deep breath and went under completely.

 _Always be weary,_ Luke used to tell her. _And always make sure there_ _'s somebody to look after you while you do this. In its deepest stages, this submerging can make you completely unaware of the world around you._

 _Why would I do it, then?_ She'd asked.

 _Because you see better._

And now she saw - the energies of the place, the strength and magnitude of them, the way they tangled and interacted with one another. She felt Snoke like a huge, constant pressure on everyone, and she tried making herself as small as possible.

Kylo was easy to find. His inner world was always there, always beckoning her in one way or another. Their link, dreaded thing, had been bothering her a lot when she first started her training with Luke. She was always afraid that he would take over her body and finish what he'd started. And though Luke never said a thing, she sensed that he felt the same way, too.

And now she had to not only enter this inner world, but navigate it, bluff, destabilize it. She was already weary.

There. She was close, right on the edge. If she tried gaining entry, there would be no way to hide herself - she had to be ready to face the monster. Taking a deep breath, she stepped in.

 _Who_ _'s that? Who are you?_

And then a wave of disgust hit her, so hard it made her reel. He'd felt her, and she'd felt him, and she could not stand it. Her entire being was in revolt. Gritting her teeth, she tried again, but the nausea was so powerful, it threw her back - away fromKylo, his inner world, away from the energies of the Force, and right back into her body, where she curled up into a ball and screamed.

* * *

"You will do well to eat," Hux said to her. She hadn't seen him enter the room. "You won't get very far with the energy you have now, and you're not getting any more food until I see some sign of cooperation from you."

"Your belief in my usefulness is touching," she murmured. She was still curled up, body quaking. "But I think it was overestimated in this case."

Hux raised an eyebrow. She expected him to lash out, maybe hit her. Instead, he sat on the chair and started to take pieces of food from the plate laid out for her. "Tell me," he said. "What is it that's stopping you?"

Rey watched him for a while, unsure if he was genuinely curious or just playing with her. Either was a distinct possibility.

"The longer you wait," he said between bites, "the less there will be for you."

"I cannot force the connection," Rey said, pushing herself off the bed. "Whatever must have happened the other times, it didn't work now."

While Hux seemed to mull this through, Rey wondered if it was too soon for Plan B. She had no doubt her captor had one in mind - it would be too easy to throw her out of the echo chamber and then "find" her. One way or another, he could make use of her.

She had a Plan B too - but she told herself that she wouldn't use it, not just yet. At least not until Hux gave up on her completely.

"Let me guess," he said, "it feels strange to you, the connection? Revolting, even? When it was involuntary, you bore it out somehow, but reaching out to him yourself makes you sick. Oh, don't make that face—" he added "—it's not that difficult to guess, given how you look like right now."

"If you're so in tune with the Force, why do you need me for?" Rey asked, angry now.

"Because I am not in tune, Rey. In fact, I am anything but." Hux pushed the tray across the table. "Come. Eat. You survived for years on Jakku, so I know you have common sense."

Again with the references to Jakku. She hated that smug attitude he had, dangling her own past over her head like bait, saying just enough to make her tense up, but not giving anything up. It didn't help that she knew what it could be. She was done with that part of her life - she wasn't interested in reliving the experience. Least of all with Hux.

She did have common sense, though. And once her stomach settled, the idea of food became a lot more appealing.

"Your lessons with Luke," Hux said, "How far did they get? Did he get to the part where you discuss really getting into people's heads, or did he just fine-tune your mind-control abilities?"

"How did you—" Stupid question. Kylo had probably shared every bit of Jedi training he'd received from Luke. She shoved some food in her mouth and thought back. The truth was, her Jedi training had been haphazard and uncomfortable, even a year in. Luke picked up topics and dropped them at random, spent weeks trying to teach her something only to then give up in a huff. The only thing that was consistent were the sword drills, and that was mostly because she could practice with the other skilled fighters in the Resistance.

"Master Luke taught me a lot about the Force," she said at length. "You'll need to be more specific about what you're asking me."

"Funny, I thought that was pretty specific. You seemed comfortable enough trying to control my mind when we first started our little partnership, and yet here you are, unable to establish a connection with your most hated enemy. That doesn't strike you as a little odd?"

Rey shrugged. "Perhaps he's guarding himself better than before."

"Or perhaps he's more familiar to you than you realize."

She waited for him to explain, but Hux just sat there, looking like he'd just revealed the secrets of the universe to her. Eventually, she had to ask him to clarify.

"Why don't I give a practical example?" he said, smirking. "Think back to when you were on Jakku…"

"Enough! Stop referring to Jakku as if you know what it was like."

Her hands hurt. She'd slammed them against the table, with more strength than she expected. Pain shot through her palms and up her forearms. Her wrists, still tender from their confinement, felt like they might break.

"As I said—" Hux went on, as though she hadn't interrupted him at all "—when you were on Jakku, you occasionally had to get people to do what you want. Nothing they weren't already thinking about doing - rather, you had to influence them, so that they wouldn't do anything you _really_ didn't want them to do. And because they were weaklings, they yielded to your control. You couldn't do it all the time - certainly not to barter for more food - but when you encountered a Stormtrooper, you found them equally easy to influence.

"You cannot influence him because he's a far stronger personality. Not without breaking his mind."

"Is that what you want me to do?" Rey asked.

"It would only be fair. Considering that's what he almost did to your friend. Ah, but that's not how you do things at the Resistance, is it?" He laughed - the face she made must have been an interesting one. "That suits me just fine. In fact, if he were made to look like an imbecile, it would help me far more than if he were to die a martyr for the cause."

 _We have very different ideas about martyrdom,_ Rey thought. "You just said it's impossible to influence a strong mind without breaking it."

"Which is why I don't want you to influence him. I want you to establish a connection, and then destroy him."

* * *

Later, when the last scraps of food were devoured, Rey played a game of "if only". It was a very easy game - she didn't need anything but her own thoughts for it, and the limits to it was only her imagination. She fancied herself quite good at it, too. She'd played it for years.

If only Master Luke had spent more time teaching her about using the Force to connect.

If only she'd brought her shields up.

If only she hadn't left the Resistance without telling anybody.

If only she'd opened up to her friends when they asked her what the problem was.

There were so many pathways, so many different outcomes, she could have explored them until she died of hunger. It changed nothing of her current situation, but it sure was a way to pass the time. More pleasant than what Hux had suggested, at any rate.

 _You connected with him several times already, so you know you can do it. There is something about him now that makes him revolting to you. Something that you understand better than you want to. Figure out what that is, and you_ _'ll be able to break through._

What a load that was. She was becoming more and more convinced that this was some elaborate mind game, devised by the First Order to break her and make her easier for Snoke to manipulate. Never mind that the grand master hadn't even tried making contact. It was all a matter of time.

Before he'd left, Hux had showed her a recording - a smuggler, talking about how he'd left her on Jakku after her parents had given her to him. _Yes, yes, I remember girl._ She could still hear his voices, all four of them, as they rose in harmony to describe her at age 5 or 6. _Supposed to take her somewhere safe. Money ran out halfway, though._

Rey had taken care not to show any emotions as she watched - and when Hux asked if she had any questions, it had taken everything not to grab the recorder from his hand. It could all be a ruse - in fact, it was more likely than not - but her heart had leapt at the words. They made sense - after all, why Jakku of all places? Why abandon her at a desert world with no means of communication and barely any possessions, and not a more hospitable planet? There were far easier ways to get rid of a child, and they would have had a safeguard if they suspected for a moment that they wouldn't be back before her supplies ran out.

If her parents had left her in the care of someone who they trusted, who had then turned around and abandoned her… that made sense.

It was also, unfortunately, exactly the sort of thing she would have hoped to hear. _Careful,_ she thought. _Be very careful._ Hope - stupid, treacherous hope - was taking root.

She tried to reach out to Luke through the Force - she'd been trying every few minutes, with the same results. Her Master was too far away. There were too many negative energies surrounding her. She had managed to get into a Stormtrooper's head, briefly - and she'd discovered that he didn't know where the echo chamber was. He didn't even know what parts of the base existed beyond his quadrant.

The First Order was divided, even within its ranks. If she wanted to know the full extent of the place, she had to tap into the mind of a higher-up. A strong personality.

Kylo Ren, maybe?

 _This could be how I destabilize him,_ she thought. If she got him to free her, that would definitely raise questions.

Then again, she would probably be dead before any of it played out. Her lightsaber was locked away. She had nothing to defend herself with. He'd cut her down in seconds.

But if she was smart… if she said the right things…

She took a deep breath and sat on the bed. She reached out to the Force. And then she tried picking Kylo out of the multitude once more.

The darkness was all around her, blinding her, filling her lungs. Sickness started to build, and she fought herself from running away. She wasn't even talking to him yet, and she was already put off. What was it? What was it that freaked her out so much? It made no sense.

If anything, she ought to have been sick when she heard about how her parents abandoned her with a stranger.

 _How could you?_ She thought. _How could you do this to me?_

Bit by bit, the darkness around her started to feel less oppressive. The pressure eased, and she found herself almost… comforted.

 _They left me behind,_ Rey thought on, keeping her awareness open as she delved into herself. _They didn_ _'t care to make sure I was safe._

 _They thought it was for your own good,_ Kylo responded. All at once, the darkness fell away, as did the revulsion and the fear, and she found herself facing her enemy, for the first time, in his own world.


End file.
